Behind The Walls
by Mischa1
Summary: Just another day in the X-Files for Special Agent John Doggett, only... not.


Behind The Walls  
by Mischa  
mischablue@iprimus.com.au  
  
Rating: PG (language)  
Category: VA  
Keywords: Doggett, Scully, D/S UST  
Spoilers: 'The Gift', 'Via Negativa', S8 in general.  
Summary: Just another day in the X-Files for Special Agent  
John Doggett, only... not.  
Disclaimer: The characters of John Doggett and Dana Scully  
aren't mine -- they are the intellectually and creatively  
the property of 1013, Fox, Chris Carter, and Robert Patrick  
and Gillian Anderson.  
Archive: SHODDSters, yes; XFMU, yes; will post other places  
myself  
Author's Note: A response to the Summer/Mischa challenge --  
Elements. See end of fic to find out what the  
improv elements were.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
It was too late in the morning to even begin considering  
going home and getting some sleep.  
  
He leaned back in his chair, looking around the basement  
office. Weariness clung to every pore, the weight of fatigue  
pressing down on his mind. Another sleepless night in the  
depths of the Hoover building.  
  
Only this time there wasn't a plethora of case information  
newly imprinted into his memory. No pages of scrawled  
notes piled into a corner. There was only him. An  
innocently blank computer screen. Dim light through the  
tiny window, filtered by a grey sheet of rain. The office  
felt like a prison when it was like this, and sometimes the  
people who wandered down here were prisons  
themselves. He thought of his partner's shuttered gaze.  
Behind the walls the walls begin, he thought, and behind  
the bars are bars.  
  
It wasn't the first time he had considered this. Nor was it  
the first time that he'd looked around the basement office  
and felt a growing sense of frustration at its static  
environment. It was just another day in the X-Files for  
Special Agent John Doggett, only... not.  
  
He ran a hand wearily over his face.  
  
It wouldn't take much to just grab the keys and head home.  
To shut himself in his house, to stare at himself in the  
mirror, to try and work out what the hell went down in  
Squamash. He pictured himself sitting on his couch, book in  
hand, the buzz of the television filling his empty house  
with sound, and shook his head. He wasn't a quitter, and  
going home wasn't the best option right now anyway. Not to  
his silent house in Falls Church with his books and his  
loneliness and the echoes of a family resonating along the  
walls. Not now, when he had a whole other aspect of survivor  
guilt to struggle with.  
  
He was dead. He should be dead. And yet he was alive.  
  
Doggett didn't take much stock of the prying eyes and hushed  
whispers of the other staff members walking the halls of the  
JEH. If they wanted to waste their time, that was their  
business. As long as the perps got caught and justice was  
served they could waste their time in idleness Doggett knew  
he didn't understand. When he had walked along the halls  
early that morning to deliver an acknowledgement to A.D.  
Skinner, he'd felt the occasional stare of a worker catching  
up on too much paperwork in the bullpen.  
  
Shock still lay thick under his skin, made him acutely aware  
of the curiosity. He didn't seriously believe he was being  
watched, but he felt it all the same.  
  
The X-Files Division was the FBI's personal brand of  
reality television; the bizarre human experiment was not  
only addictive, but now interactive thanks to his presence  
in the basement office. He made a conscious effort to get to  
Skinner's office and back without making the usual stops to  
check if any of his colleagues had come in early, without  
stopping to say hello. The feeling of isolating himself had  
stung. He had wondered if this was how Scully permanently  
felt.  
  
And now he was back here in the office, staring blankly at  
the walls. His eyes were playing tricks on him, Doggett  
decided. Fatigue had been threatening to overtake him all  
weekend as he had worked, and now he was too restless  
to sleep properly... Occasionally he would blink suddenly  
and see dark shadows pooling around corners, enough to  
startle him back into wakefulness. Micro-sleep. He knew  
it well from rigorous watches out on Lebanon, stakeouts  
back in New York, but somehow its frequency lessened  
since joining the FBI.  
  
Until he had joined the X-Files, of course.  
  
They only appeared when fatigue made him vulnerable to the  
machinations of the mind. The X-Files were a study in  
contradictions; the curiosity of his investigations leaving  
him open to his own failings, even as his logic told him  
that the paranormal was a cop-out excuse for a lack of  
answers. In the wake of dreaming darkness, of seeing his  
partner's head fall from his hands, he sometimes thought  
that it was the shadow of his own shortfallings that crept  
along in his peripheral vision. Other times, he merely  
placed his mind on his task and worked.  
  
It was a familiar feeling. He was going in circles here. No,  
not circles. It was like all he did in his life was learn in  
a spiral; always finding himself at the same place, just  
with a little more wisdom than before, a little higher, a  
little lower, but the same place. Doggett closed his eyes  
and waited, hoped that the events of the last few days were  
just delusions. They had to be. He wasn't prepared to accept  
that he had been given life by a man who could take death...  
but there was no way around it.  
  
Sounds, edging into his senses. Brisk footfall on linoleum.  
A stride which still held the length of small steps taking  
double time to catch up with one. Scully's face was lined  
with her own problems as she walked in, removing her  
rain-soaked overcoat. She was drenched, practically drowned,  
and a smile touched his lips.  
  
The smile didn't survive his musings.  
  
She always looked so damned weary when she was  
unaware he was looking; an age beyond his comprehension  
permeating her features. Worn cerulean eyes stared blankly  
at something far off in the distance, or something deep  
within, he wasn't entirely sure. He always tried his  
damnedest, but he could never quite work her out. She was  
placing her coat on the hook and smoothing her hair when  
he decided to catch her attention.  
  
"Mornin', Agent Scully."  
  
She stiffened and turned, chagrined to have been caught in  
even such a necessary primping as this. Something shuttered.  
Scully closed off again. Another prison in an already  
solitary room.  
  
"Good morning, Agent Doggett." She paused, and for a  
moment it almost sounded as though she cared, that he  
mattered in her world. "You're here early."  
  
"Catching up on a few things."  
  
Scully gave him a look and he realised she could call him  
on his excuse. Friday afternoon, he remembered, he had  
been pleased to wind up the paperwork on their last case.  
Eager to get back onto his running search for Mulder.  
Knowing that the details he had requested would be  
waiting for him in his inbox. He had felt braver then,  
enough to ask her if she wanted to grab a bite to eat, and  
as he picked up the envelope from his inbox Scully had  
declined with enough genuine regret in her eyes for him to  
know that one day, she could take up his offer.  
  
Then he had read what his sources had to say. Everything  
went to hell from there.  
  
Three days ago, the nature of time and life and death had  
seemed so much simpler. You lived. You died. Two simple,  
indefatigable rules. There was no way around it -- you  
weren't supposed to wake up mere hours later after your  
death to find yourself alive again. It just... well, it  
wasn't an option.  
  
Scully cleared her throat, and Doggett came back to himself.  
  
She was looking at him hard from where she stood, all  
unconscious openness extinguished. The efficient, alert,  
analytical Dana Scully had risen to the forefront and  
removed each line of weariness from her skin. She couldn't  
completely hide the age in her eyes, but the sharpness in  
them masked it well enough.  
  
How do you do it, he wanted to ask, how do you push back  
that much time with so much ease? Because Doggett knew he  
carried the weight of his own existence in his face, in his  
stature, in his eyes. He could never quite conceal it, and  
never from her.  
  
And Doggett knew it by the way she was watching him, her  
gaze indecipherable and complex as always. A beat of  
silence. Another. He took a breath.  
  
"Assistant Director Skinner called me last night," Scully  
said, "and he said that you'd been on a case. About Mulder."  
  
He'd told her that?  
  
Doggett nodded. "Yeah," he admitted. "The lead ran cold."  
  
It wasn't just cold, it was dead. A dead end.  
  
"Okay." A distracted look crept into her eyes. Where was she  
in her mind? Doggett wondered. The world of the analytical,  
filing away his information for later use? Or somewhere  
else, a place in her mind where this craziness all made  
sense? Her voice was a little softer, a little more  
introspective. "Anything... I need to know?"  
  
He watched her carefully, sharpened his own senses. There  
was no trace of nervousness in her voice, nothing to  
indicate that she knew either the events of the weekend case  
or of her own indirect involvement. Doggett was glad he had  
trusted his instincts, trusted his partner enough to  
recognise that she had played no conscious part in the false  
reports. His spirits lifted slightly at that.  
  
"No," he replied, and hoped she would accept that. "Just an  
old case I'd thought Agent Mulder would take a personal  
interest in."  
  
Scully smiled slightly, and it felt as though a shadow was  
pulling away from her. "If you tried that, you'd be off  
investigating every weekend all over the country, Agent  
Doggett."  
  
Doggett wondered what it would take to get her to really  
smile. What she would look like. How much younger she  
would seem. "It was worth a shot," he said. "I haven't given  
up on finding him, Agent Scully. I won't."  
  
He would promise himself to find Mulder for her, but he  
could never promise it to her face, because he knew it  
wasn't his vows she was interested in. Not now, anyway. For  
a moment, Scully's gaze focused on something not quite in  
the room, looking within herself, searching without... he  
could tell she wanted to be away from here, far from this  
place, and if he had any hope of taking her there he would  
have.  
  
"I appreciate you trying," she told him, and it had to be  
enough.  
  
Doggett took a deep breath and looked back at the empty case  
report, closing the document and switching off the computer.  
The screen's blankness had unnerved him, almost taunted him  
with the knowledge its emptiness held. He was glad to be rid  
of it. He hated lying to his partner. He saw Scully glance  
away and head to Mulder's desk, sitting down and looking  
through the file inbox.  
  
He cleared his throat. "Nothing new's come in this morning,  
Agent Scully," he said. "Slow day."  
  
"The day's just started," Scully replied, grasping one of  
the older files and flipping idly through it. "You've  
probably just doomed us for rest of the week," she added.  
Off-handed. Unthinking. Unknowing he had probably already  
doomed himself, simply by waking up.  
  
"Yeah. Well... there's nothing new."  
  
Scully nodded and took a deep breath, almost unsure of  
herself. "You haven't slept."  
  
He blinked. "Agent Scully?"  
  
It was concern in her eyes; a worry that he had sometimes  
seen reflected in her gaze. "You've been here all night,  
haven't you, Agent Doggett?"  
  
He was disconcerted, but not uncomfortable. It was  
directness he could handle, and he was glad of her approach.  
  
"Skinner called me soon after he left this office. That was  
almost midnight. I come in early today," she continued,  
shooting a significant look at her watch, "very early, I  
might add, and I find you're here." There was genuine  
concern in her eyes, underneath the wariness. "You didn't go  
home last night, did you, Agent Doggett?"  
  
"He also said that under his recommendation you weren't  
going to write up the case. I can understand that -- you did  
this in your own time -- but is there... another reason?"  
  
The lie tasted bitter on his tongue as he threw up his own  
wall, distanced himself from the case, from her, from  
everything... "The case didn't lead anywhere."  
  
The words tasted bitter as a casual throwaway line. It was  
the same old song as always. The X-Files had taken him away  
from the world of smug 'no comment's and yet here he was,  
using the same typical bullshit with the one person who  
didn't need it and wouldn't buy it anyway. He wondered how  
many times that line would run through his head today,  
trying to justify his choice and Skinner's recommendation.  
The case didn't lead anywhere. It panned out. It was a dead  
end. Anger coiled and snapped within, and he couldn't hold  
it.  
  
"Look, I'll be okay, Agent Scully," he burst out,  
frustrated. "I caught a few winks on my desk here this  
morning. I got my sleep. Okay?"  
  
She blinked, startled, and eased off. "Okay." Her gaze  
slowly lowered to her desk; older files were plucked from  
her inbox and she started going through them. Throwing up  
her defences again, retreating behind her walls. Doggett  
watched the emotions flicker across her face only to vanish  
and he frowned.  
  
Here's how it worked, Agent Scully, he said in his head as  
the silence slowly consumed them whole. Somehow Mulder got  
you to sign off on false case reports, taking the time to  
try and find a cure for his brain disease under the guise  
of... protecting someone. He shot a man, you know that?  
Killed him, or so everyone imagined. Only it wasn't -- not  
what you would think, not what anyone would think, that to  
kill this man was to save him, to put him out of his misery.  
And here's the kicker, Agent Scully. Here's where -- where  
it doesn't make sense anymore, where some sort of twisted  
logic takes over, where there are no clear winners or losers  
you could've backed. The man was some kind of a -- a  
soul-eater. Beyond a man. For the townsfolk, somethin' less  
than a man. He could take away their illness... their death.  
  
The brutal memory of the bullet slamming into his back made  
him tense in his seat, abandon his train of thought. They  
always said in the case of point-blank kills that the impact  
was too quick, death too instant for the victim to register  
pain. He could never prove it, of course, but Doggett knew  
better now, remembering the burst of sharp heat tearing  
through his flesh. His fingers shook and he gripped the desk  
to maintain balance. Post-traumatic stress disorder; he  
recognised the signs, recalled military debriefings,  
remembered the patronising tone of the resident police  
psychologist back in New York. Knew what had to be done, but  
this was a case that would never exist in any record, under  
circumstances which would never be believed.  
  
It wasn't like he'd never been shot before. He was a goddamn  
ex-Marine, for Christ's sake -- knew the rigours, the  
discipline, the risk. He'd felt the flash of flame ripping  
through his skin, the flare of pain blooming for a single  
firestruck moment before sinking into a temporary darkness.  
  
Only this time, darkness should have lasted a longer than it  
had. Far longer. He shivered at the thought, unwillingly,  
enough to catch his partner's attention.  
  
"Agent Doggett?" Scully was sitting straighter in her chair  
now, looking at him. He focused on her. Her eyes were wide,  
alarmed.  
  
"You okay?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
Scully narrowed her eyes and silently assessed him, her  
medical training kicking in. Doggett wished he could hide  
behind his walls as effectively as she could behind hers.  
She silently questioned him, all intense eyes and mind too  
quick at mentally weighing his confusion.  
  
"Agent Doggett..." She got up and walked over to his desk,  
leaning slightly on the edge as he looked up at her. "You  
don't look okay. You look tired. You look as though you  
haven't slept all weekend."  
  
Her gaze roamed over him. He took a breath. "S'okay. Just  
had some work I had to do. You know how it is."  
  
She pursed her lips slightly and glanced away. "Look, go  
home. Take the day off. I'll cover for you."  
  
He couldn't believe it. She was offering him a temporary  
out, and he wasn't going to take it. "We got a job to do,  
Agent Scully."  
  
"All the same." Scully looked him in the eye and  
straightened, touching his shoulder subtly with her  
fingertips as she turned away and headed back to her desk.  
His business shirt tingled over his skin. It wasn't his  
imagination.  
  
"The things you see," he said suddenly, causing her to turn  
around. "These... cases. Everything you've seen here," he  
added, waving his hand in the general direction of the filing  
cabinets. "Cases where there's never an air-tight solution,  
or where you can't prosecute, or where the answers  
themselves are -- are sloppy... how do you react to them?"  
  
Something changed in her eyes and she stood by her desk  
staring at him. Maybe it was hope that he'd started having  
an open mind. Maybe it was a silent thankfulness he was  
asking. Maybe it was bitter understanding of where he was in  
the game.  
  
"I try not to... react, Agent Doggett," she said. "There's  
what the evidence tells us," she added, and he nodded, at  
least understanding that. "There's what can be explained, by  
science, by fact, but also by belief. We..." Scully spread  
out her hands. "We see things, that we can't always explain  
by science, or logic, or evidence. There's a human element  
we can't overlook, and because of that, personal involvement  
is something I try to put aside. You know that. You've been  
in this long enough to be aware of how it works."  
  
"I know that," he responded, and it felt as though he was  
taking a leap, a faltering step into the unknown. He had  
seen it himself, recognised that a man's belief's controlled  
him enough to control his victims; understood the power of  
the mind to be a dangerous, deadly entity.  
  
But although there were monsters in this world and  
governments played dirty, he hadn't seen enough hard  
evidence to believe himself that there were little green men  
running around on the earth or that there were supernatural  
explanations of everything they came across. All Doggett had  
as evidence were other people's beliefs, and without proof  
he believed they were convinced but crazy.  
  
Scully knew that, and that was why the brief moment of  
connection flaring and forming between them flickered and  
faded. How was it that she could throw up so many barriers  
between them and still stare him down with those eyes? "And  
how do you react to them, Agent Doggett?"  
  
There was no point in talking around it -- it was honesty  
that kept him here, that he appreciated the most to clear  
the air. "They confuse me. At best."  
  
And then... progress, perhaps. Because there was that  
mysterious little smile again, the one that held no  
explanation in the limited mental dossier he had on his  
partner. "Well, Agent Doggett, perplexity is the beginning  
of knowledge."  
  
And how did you cross that line? he wanted to ask her. What  
happened? When were you aware of it? And why? He knew he  
wouldn't get his answers. Not from her. Not right now. There  
was a quiet respect in her eyes, telling him it was  
something he had to work out himself. Questions upon  
questions, walls upon walls, and he could only nod in  
response. If to be perplexed was to teeter on the edge of a  
greater truth, then he was already there, walking over the  
precipice. Falling already.  
  
"Are you okay, Agent Doggett?" There was that look in her  
eyes again. The understanding. He met her gaze and saw her  
expression change subtly, but he didn't want to read it and  
didn't try.  
  
"Yeah. You?"  
  
She stared at him for far too long and then nodded, quietly  
excusing herself from the office. Doggett leaned back in his  
chair again and gazed up at the small window, out into the  
greyness outside. A prisoner, beginning to understand  
the meaning of the bars and walls around him. So this was  
how it all worked, Doggett thought. As much as he knew that  
each assignment, each day, could change a man... he still  
hadn't stopped to consider this. The walls here, in this  
office, in the X-Files, didn't end where they begun. A man  
free enough to walk outside them would not be, could never  
be, the same as he was when he went in.  
  
Doggett reached for the file she had placed on his desk and  
began reading. He wanted to collect his thoughts by the time  
his partner returned, and he knew that when she came back  
she would have retreated into her own troubles again. Behind  
these walls the walls begun, he thought, and behind these  
bars were bars.  
  
~ END ~  
  
Improv elements:  
  
-- rain  
-- a song  
-- Doggett's house  
-- reality television  
-- The quote: "Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge." 


End file.
